@Mark/Simon web site suggestion ...

Monkey Archive Forums/Monkey Discussion/@Mark/Simon web site suggestion ...

Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#1]
Hay guys, so we know your working on the site at the moment creating what a lot of us hope will be a stunningly cool site.

While your at it I wanted to throw some suggestions your way when it comes to the app's section.

* Categories
We need a way to separate out stuff, Modules, Full games,Demos,Code Exaples etc etc.

* Tags, Search
Would be cool if we could add tags to our showcase entries which would make it easier for people to search for and find.

* View All/Cat All
We need links for viewing EVERYTHING, and then all entries by Cat.

* Charts per Cat
The Charts at the moment are mind boggling, but I suspect that's more to do with the lack of categories than anything else, we need charts per category

* All Chart
And of course a chart that just list everything

* Format ?
Allow flash ??? why would you not.

The Showcase could and SHOULD be a shining example of what can be done with monkey, as well as a place for us to show off little bits of code, I do not see why it cant do both things well.

It's crazy that New Star is bellow Horsey, in fact it's crazy that they are even in the same list, one is a bafta award winning top class game, the other is....... Horsey.

And that's not the only example, I'v seen a number of really good games done in monkey and yet looking at that chart you would have absolutely no clue.

I think the charts, and the app's section needs some tender loving care while your doing this website re-design, make a place where we WANT! to put our games, make it a place where you BRL! want people to go and look, as an example of what can be done with monkey.

Sorry in a bit of a rant mood today..


simonh(Posted 2013) [#2]
Thanks for the suggestions. If anyone else has any suggestions for the new site feel free to add them here.

It's still early days at the moment but the new site is looking very slick thanks to Devolonter's fine work!


ziggy(Posted 2013) [#3]
Great to know there's really a new site being done!


Shagwana(Posted 2013) [#4]
Do need a nicer colour theme like the blitzbasic.com graphite theme.


ziggy(Posted 2013) [#5]
Auto subscribe for the threads you start (option to disable on usser account)


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#6]
I think a gallery might be kinda cool.

For the forums, creating an Embed tag for apps would be really cool, something like [app]78{/app} and have that embed app 78 in the forum post, easily done.

Also not sure why you stopped using it, but getting a working syntax highlighting bbcode would be really cool as well, there are more options out there now some of which officially support monkey which is cool, although I don't recall its name.

In terms of App submission, would be nice if it supported RAR And ZIP, as well as Html5 and FLASH , or both at the same time, allowing the viewer to pick the one they like.


dopeyrulz(Posted 2013) [#7]
Terrific!


degac(Posted 2013) [#8]
Little suggestion: please restore the 'code archives' like for BB, Blitzmax and so on (maybe with TAGS for OS/category/...).

I think there are MANY little solutions (in all the forums) that could be lost to a new user.


Midimaster(Posted 2013) [#9]
A big problem of the monkey site compared to the german blitzforum side is the missing of an build in web space where I can upload the pictures and sources needed in my posts.

In the english forum links to images and sources are often broken after some weeks, month or years because the author uploaded the sources anywhere and later moved his web space.

In the german forum every user has 10MB for using it for sources he links in forum posts. This 10MB are already enough for thousands of posts. Under this restriction users think about optimizing the image size, which help the speed of the posts too...

I think with some webspace the tutorials would often become more illustrated and the post keep "readable" also after years.


DruggedBunny(Posted 2013) [#10]
Another call for Code Archives here!


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#11]
I think a code archives would also be a cool idea, however I think it might be even better if it was part of the overall app section.

For example if there is a category called code, with sub cat's for each target, people could then upload the source(syntax highlight it pls) as well as a working version to run on the page.

For situations where there are no examples just a little function or something then it would go into the same section just would be missing the html5/flash window, instead it could possibly show a screenshot or image from the author like a banner so that normal space taken by the running code has something in it.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#12]
Which reminds me.......

Syntax Highlight our code please.


ElectricBoogaloo(Posted 2013) [#13]
I'm not fussy..
I have my gripes about the current methods here, like the BBCode being completely unstandardised (A instead of URL? WTF is with that!?), but my main issue is the lack of a single-glance "Everything New" section.

-=-=-

In no way, shape, or form, would I ever suggest that SoCoder is the pinnacle of modern web-dev. If anything, it's bottom of the barrel 20 year-old web-dev, blatently nicked from elsewhere... But at the very least, I can click to the frontpage, and immediately see all the new stuff.

ALL the latest posts, ALL the latest uploads, ALL the latest showcases, ALL the latest shoutbox comments, and everything else.
It's a cramped chaotic mess, but .. right there.. all on one screen.. all at once, without scrolling or anything... I know what I've read, and what I haven't.

Here, I currently need to head to the Community section, then middle-click all the sections that have (new) on them (assuming the new is being accurate, this time around), then scan each section individually.
I frequently ignore the Latest Apps, and barely ever check the forum sections that exist below my browser window.

I don't expect a sprawling mess, but having some sort of "New Things" or an "Event List", or "You haven't seen this!" page, or something like that.... that would help!

There's no need to go crazy with features, or fancy with silly AJAX stuff, just for the hell of it, just be sure the basics are in there and we'll be happy.

-=-=-

Oh, and as for Syntax Highlighting.. Only if it doesn't bugger up when I try to copy+paste from it..
Currently it's impossible to Click/Ctrl+A/Ctrl+C the code. You need to sort that out!


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#14]
Yeah just about everything you said there can easily be done and is in most cases the default option for most modern forum applications. as for that new thing, that bugs me to no end, actually, NO BRL its not NEW!, iv read it 10 times already....

As for copy& paste, github uses this, http://ajaxorg.github.io/ace/#nav=about no reason BRL couldnt use it as well. but there are tons of other options out there, Ace copies the text not the crazy colour codes.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#15]
You also have crayon which I now use which does not have that problem of copying html colour codes either.

http://www.littleember.com/2013/07/14/small-code-snippet/#more-1218

you can even toggle plain text simply by mousing over at the top..


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2013) [#16]
"A instead of URL"

Probably from <A HREF="www.blah...">, remember?


Tibit(Posted 2013) [#17]
The number 1 feature I want is:

Be able to see posts that are NEW. PLEASE! It is crazy having to browser threads over and over not knowing if I have read all posts in it. I have missed so much that by coincidence I have found months later that would have been very useful.

Please make this a priority feature. You have "New" in the layout, why not just make it work as expected? Which is that "New" is gone once you have read that thread.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2013) [#18]
'New' works for me (IE10).


Why0Why(Posted 2013) [#19]
New also works fine for me in Chrome. I just look at when the last post was as well from teh main index and jump into subforums that way.


skape(Posted 2013) [#20]
"New" doesn't really work for me in Firefox. I can't quite tell how it is working, but it seems to drop "new" about 12 hours (?) since the newest post. Not really helpful.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2013) [#21]
Does it even show the "(2 days ago)" on the right? For me that would probably be enough, as it records the hours if the last post is less than a day old.

Failing that, I'd suggest a switch of browser. I use IE in general but have Chrome installed for some sites that work better with it.

I just tried Firefox. I don't know where the version number is. It shows new posts for me (which surprised me, for some reason I thought the browser was remembering that stuff, but it must be the account. Or is it cookies?)


skape(Posted 2013) [#22]
I've got FF 22.0, and it shows "new," it just doesn't respond to viewing the topic.

I'm not really complaining, as I make do with the "2 days ago" etc. on each post (which does work). I'm merely commenting that the "new!" label is not helpful and would be nice to fix at some point...


Tibit(Posted 2013) [#23]
The problem is that new does not go away so every single post is new. Which does not help.

Yes I also use "posted since" to see if there is readable things. But most times I end up reading threads that has no new posts or miss out - it is a nightmare. I have even had posts that I myself have posted that I never got replies on, then months later I check back on them and realize I did get an answer... meh..

I'm using latest Chrome. Sounds strange if this site has a IE specific mechanism. IE10 is following quite close to the web standards so what could be the case? Can someone confirm that these forums should not work with Chrome, but does indeed work with IE?


skape(Posted 2013) [#24]
Chrome doesn't fix the issue for me. Dunno about IE.

I'm guessing "new!" is just supposed to be "reasonably recently posted" and not actually "unread." Would be nice if it was unread...

Edit: Hmmm, but when I logged back in using Firefox, all of the "new!" labels disappeared (even posts I hadn't read.)


Pharmhaus(Posted 2013) [#25]
implementing a grid-like view for modules with icons would be really nice.(or at least switching between grid/list)
Just take a look at the mozilla firefox addon page for an example of a clean layout.

The text-only module pages, where you scroll and scroll reading massive amount of text can never compete with clean icons, sorted by category, author, rating, date, etc.

i also vote for direct integration into TED/other IDEs because it would be nice if you could just browse the module mainpage with search from within TED, download, (maybe even automated install which just unzips and copies files to the module folder,) all in one place, not scattered everywhere.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#26]
Yeah I second that Pharmahaus, having it all built into an IDE would help everyone.


ElectricBoogaloo(Posted 2013) [#27]
If you want to do that, simply leave it as a webpage, and have it be a tab in the IDE.. Don't get all "App" about it.. nnngh.. I hate that modern-day gubbins. You end up with several incomplete half-assed editions of the same website, and it's all nasty and horrible.

Get one version working right, and write it well enough that it works on everything in the same way. Job done.